Perry forms Texas team to fight oil spills

DISASTER IN THE GULFPerry forms team to fight oil spillsGovernor says NASA part of expert coalition that will focus on preventing tragedies

Published 5:30 am, Wednesday, July 7, 2010

NASA, the University of Houston and Rice University will be part of a coalition of scientists, policy experts, oil and gas engineers and state officials focused on preventing future oil spill disasters, Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday in Houston.

Standing beneath the Saturn V moon rocket on display at Johnson Space Center, Perry announced the formation of the Gulf Project, which he described as "a Texas version of that legendary race to the moon."

In announcing the initiative to make offshore drilling safer, Perry reiterated his opposition to the Obama administration's moratorium on deep-water drilling and what he described as "mountains of new regulations based more on prevailing emotions than on sound science."

Most Popular

"That sort of passionate response is possibly understandable, but it is neither appropriate nor is it likely to solve the actual problem in the Gulf," Perry said. "Considering our growing energy needs, it's not realistic, either."

Members of the Texas congressional delegation also denounced the drilling ban during other appearances in the area Tuesday.

Perry said the Gulf Project represents "an unprecedented collaboration of the state's top scientists, engineers and researchers focused on a clear set of vitally important goals of protecting our residents, our environment and our economy."

Improving response

Stephen Holditch, chairman of Texas A&M's department of petroleum engineering, said participants in the project will work on improving oil spill response and cleanup technologies, review current safety regulations and work to develop new tools to handle future offshore drilling problems.

No price tag

Perry didn't put a price tag on the project but said he expects the oil and gas industry to help pick up the tab.

Perry's office noted that Texas supplies 20 percent of the nation's oil production, a fourth of its natural gas production, a quarter of its refining capacity and nearly 60 percent of its chemical manufacturing.

The state's energy industry employs between 200,000 and 300,000, with $35 billion in total wages.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas and Rep. Pete Olson of Sugar Land, both Republicans, toured a Noble Corp. rig in the Gulf of Mexico that's been idled by the drilling ban, and said afterward the tour strengthened their belief that the moratorium is a mistake and will cost American jobs.

Threat to Texas jobs

Some of those jobs may be lost at Sunbelt Machine Works, a privately owned precision machine shop in Stafford that derives about 80 percent of its sales from the oil industry, CEO Frank Scantlin said.

Scantlin said in the past six or seven months, he's been able to rehire about 30 employees, bringing his total payroll to about 70. That's still far short of the 125 Sunbelt employed before the recession.

'Trickle down'

Now he's worried he may have to let people go again.

"It will trickle down to us, probably in about 90 days," he said. "If they don't lift the moratorium, it's going to be bad."

If drilling doesn't resume in the Gulf, the rigs may move to other parts of the world.

"They'll take the jobs with them," Cornyn warned, adding they'll also shift orders away from companies like Sunbelt.

Olson and Cornyn said they would support a more narrowly focused drilling ban that would impose stricter restrictions on new wells but allow those already under way to continue.

Private meeting

In another event, Reps. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, John Culberson, R-Houston, and Gene Green, D-Houston, discussed the ban in a private meeting on the University of Houston campus with industry executives and other energy experts.

"Even in working on the new rules that we need to do, we cannot just shut down oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico," Green said afterward. "That's just not reasonable. Our country needs the crude oil and natural gas."

'A catastrophe'

Brady said that the moratorium already is costing jobs and that more will be lost if drilling rigs idled by the ban move overseas.

Louis Raspino, president and CEO of Pride International, an offshore drilling company, said BP's blown-out Macondo well is just one of 50,000 that have been drilled in U.S. offshore waters.

"It's a catastrophe, it's a tragedy, but it is an airplane falling out of a clear blue sky," Raspino said. "You don't ground all airplanes."